Burns

AmpliPhi’s bacteriophage-based therapeutic is proposed initially to be used for topical applications, such as those of the skin and surgical wounds, which account for approximately one quarter of hospital-acquired infections.

Infections of burn patients consititute a significant area of this unmet need. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a major cause of infection in burns units, where elevated levels of resistance are apparent even to those few remaining effective antibiotics. Current statistics indicate approximately 90,000 burn patients per annum in the EU, North America and Japan with Pseudomonas infections. Despite the use of high-dose antibiotics, such infections can cause severe effects, including destruction of skin grafts, and can progress to systemic infections from which two of every three patients will die.

Agents available to the company have already been shown to prevent graft destruction in vivo (Soothill, 1994) and to be both safe and effective in human use. Burns represent a significant “high need” market for the use of a bacteriophage-based therapeutic in human infections.